Social platform with enhanced privacy and integrated customization features

ABSTRACT

The present invention provides a social networking platform offering various services, such as, facilitating aggregation and management of a user&#39;s interaction on one or more social networking platforms, offering enhanced control over the level of privacy associated with the flow of user data, offering tools to customize the user&#39;s exposure to advertisement-related content on the social networking platform(s), integrating features to control aspects of how data/content is presented to and visualized by the user, empowering the user to multicast direct messages to other users without the other users having to meet certain constraints, empowering the user to create and/or join a group based on messaging threads, and the like. One or more of these enhanced services/features are associated with a powerful framework of authentication/permission model for access control.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/695,032, filed on Nov. 25, 2019, which is a continuation of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 16/529,642, filed on Aug. 1, 2019 (now U.S.Pat. No. 10,491,559 issued on Nov. 26, 2019), which is a continuation ofU.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/400,723 (Now U.S. Publication No.2015-0149282), filed on Nov. 12, 2014, which is a U.S. national phase ofPCT Application No. PCT/US2013/041032 filed on May 14, 2013, whichclaims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/646,736 filedon May 14, 2012, the disclosures of which are incorporated in theirentirety by reference herein.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to computer networks, and moreparticularly systems and methods related to social networking withenhanced control over privacy and customization based on userpreference.

BACKGROUND

Conventional social networks (such as Facebook® and LinkedIn®) provide avariety of features, sometimes free of charge and often on a “freemium”model, to attract users to their site, but almost all of the socialnetwork platform providers retain a level of control on user contentwhich may compromise a user's privacy. In an attempt to commerciallymonetize data extracted from the user's interaction on their sites, theplatform providers make the data available to advertisementservices/retailers/wholesalers. Currently, users almost have no choiceto enjoy the social networking experience without having to endureundesirable exposure to advertisement and/or breach of privacy,resulting in a lot of potential users avoiding social networkingaltogether. This shortcoming may actually hurt businesses who would wantto reach out to potential customers in a meaningful way where the user'sattention is not diluted by an overwhelming amount of un-curated data.

Furthermore, a user has to log on separately to various social networksto interact on a particular platform with a particular group of people.Often, user has no flexibility in aggregating contents from variousnetworks as personal bookmarking/archival. The users are also notempowered to create ‘groups’ according to their preference to enjoyfocused and perhaps higher-quality interaction within a group with alevel of privacy that the user is comfortable with.

To address many of the shortcomings discussed above, what is needed is asocial networking platform with customizable level of privacy andenhanced features to empower the users to control the flow of data thatthey share. In many aspects, what is needed is an antidote to theconventional social networking experience.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Embodiments of the present invention a social networking platformoffering various services, including, but not limited to: facilitatingaggregation and management of a user's interaction on one or more socialnetworking platforms, offering enhanced control over the level ofprivacy associated with the flow of user data, offering tools tocustomize the user's exposure to advertisement-related content on thesocial networking platform(s), integrating features to control aspectsof how data/content is presented to and visualized by the user,empowering the user to multicast direct messages to other users withoutthe other users having to meet certain constraints, empowering the userto create and/or join a group based on messaging threads, and the like.One or more of these enhanced services/features are associated with apowerful framework of authentication/permission model for accesscontrol. Therefore, the platform can be inherently made safe for certaindemographics (e.g., minors) by design. The platform also can also bemade to serve businesses/enterprises by empowering nuanced levels ofaccess to individual employees.

It is to be noted that the words ‘user’ and ‘member’ has sometimes beenused interchangeably in the specification. However, the word ‘user’ hasmostly been used to describe individuals who interact on the socialnetwork platform of the present invention, irrespective of whether theyare part of a group or not. When a ‘user’ becomes part of a group, s/heis frequently described as a ‘member.’ Also, the term ‘group’ does notnecessarily mean a formalized group. The word ‘group’ encompasses acollection of people who may be deemed as a part of an existing orpotential group. In other words, a group can be an ad hoc group withinthe social networking platform of the present invention.

The social networking platform is available to be accessed via variouscomputing/electronic devices, such as a desktop computer, a laptopcomputer, a mobile smartphone, a tablet computer, a set-top boxconnected to a television set, a personal computer for media (media PC),a gaming console etc. It may be available to be integrated with othersmart mobile devices, such as, a positioning/navigational device, ahealth management device, a portable gaming/entertainment device, awearable electronic device etc.

The social networking platform of the present invention can be a publicplatform, a semi-private platform, or a private platform. The level ofprivacy may be customizable according to member preference.

According to certain aspects of the invention, a method of implementinga multi-network interaction is implemented, where the method comprises:identifying a plurality of users to form a group within the first socialnetwork; enabling members of the group to connect to a second socialnetwork from within the first social network, wherein the second socialnetwork is external to the first social network; enabling members of thegroup to access contents posted by at least some of the other members ofthe group to the second social network; and, displaying, within thefirst social network, contents posted by the members of the group to thesecond social network. The members of the group who are connected withinthe first social network do not have to be connected with one another onthe second social network.

According to certain other aspects, a computer-implemented method fordynamically creating a formalized group on a social network platform,the method comprising: enabling users to directly exchange messageswithin the social network with one or more other users of the socialnetwork; storing a thread of messages between the users of the socialnetwork; providing at least one of the users an ability to formallycreate a group as an initial group owner within the social network basedon the stored thread of messages; and, providing the ability to one ormore members of the formalized group to manage aspects of the formalizedgroup.

According to yet additional aspects, a computer-implemented method ofpresenting multi-format information to a user of a social networkingplatform, the method comprising: enabling the user to control therelative proportion of various formats of information embedded within astream of information being visualized by the user within the socialnetwork platform.

According to additional aspects, a computer-implemented method ofglobally associating identification indicia in the form of a universaltag wherein the universal tag spans across different service types anddifferent information types available within the social network;, themethod comprising for an individual member and/or for members offormalized groups within the social network to sort, organize, orotherwise categorize items using the universal tag within severaldistinct formats of services and information which may include textposts, graphics, photos, video clips, calendar events, contactinformation, documents, and other media; and, archiving the universaltag and its associated content in a database of the social network Theuniversal tag spans across a plurality of groups within the socialnetwork.

According to additional aspects of the present invention, acomputer-implemented method of serving advertisements to a user within asocial network platform, wherein the user's personal identificationinformation is anonymized, the method comprising: providing an interfaceon the social network platform for the user to enter informationspecific to the user's advertisement viewing preference, thereby settingup an advertisement filter, and, anonymizing the user's personalidentification information from the provider of the social networkplatform; and, placing a proxy server or other anonymization methodbetween an advertisement provider and the social network platformserver, wherein the proxy server blocks access to user's personalidentification information by the advertisement provider, and,selectively presents the advertisements to the user that are passedthrough the advertisement filter based on the user's advertisementviewing preference.

Coupons are placed within the social network based on the user'sadvertisement viewing preference. In the context of the presentapplication, “coupons” are considered to be encompassed by the broadterm of “advertisement.”

According to certain aspects, embodiments of the invention provide anall-in-one dashboard that offers user groups, social network aggregationand free personal cloud storage, and much more. The user groups can beprivate/semi-private/public. Embodiments of the invention are designedfor those who are overwhelmed by their many social networks as well asthose concerned about how their online activities and personalinformation are tracked, stored and shared. The invention's Privacy Billof Rights, transparent privacy policy and permission tool “GroupAuth™,”provide an augmented level of privacy assurances for users.

According to certain additional aspects, an embodiment of the inventionis a web and mobile based application that allows users to upload andmanage their digital content, and also to control how their content isshared with others in their social networks, via email, and in privategroup environments that they can create or be invited into. Many aspectsof the service are novel and specific to the platform of the presentinvention, while certain other aspects of the service are customized tobe facilitate/harness user's interaction on other social networkingplatforms by providing seamless integration with the other socialnetworking platforms.

In a user's private group environment, in addition to sharing their owncontent, they can also receive content from other group members who haveenabled them to see it, and “re-share” it with others. The whole systemis built on a powerful permissions and sharing model that gives theowner of a piece of content the ability to selectively share it withindividuals or groups of members, and to control the permissions thatthose viewers of the content have. This complex permission and sharingmodel is woven into all of the various services in the application,including “What's New” text posts, Photos, Videos, Calendar Events,Documents, Direct Messages, and much more. Additionally, the user hashis own personal document storage area sometimes called the “My Cloud”area which serves as a general repository and permissions manager forall the content they own, of whatever type. From My Cloud, the user maychoose to share their content with others, to revoke the sharing oftheir content that they have previously shared, to change what theyallow others to do with their content, to download it from the site, andif they wish, delete it entirely. Users may also receive content fromand share content to external social networks that are accessible fromwithin the social platform environment.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other aspects and features of the present invention willbecome apparent to those ordinarily skilled in the art upon review ofthe following description of specific embodiments of the invention inconjunction with the accompanying figures, which describe variousimplementation examples of embodiments of the invention in a serviceaccessed by a browser application on any known or future computingdevice. Those skilled in the art will understand how to implement theinvention after being taught by the foregoing descriptions and drawings.

FIG. 1 illustrates a welcome screen for a social network, according toone embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 illustrates a page view within the general environment of thesocial network platform of the present invention, showing user groups angateways to external networks;

FIG. 3 illustrates a custom view of an integrated calendar for anindividual user belonging to multiple groups within the social networkof the present invention;

FIGS. 4 and 5 illustrate process flowcharts for a feature described as“Group Tweet”, according to embodiments of the present invention;

FIG. 6 illustrates an example process flow for creation of a forma groupfrom direct message threads, according to embodiments of the presentinvention;

FIGS. 7-10 illustrate wireframe views depicting how an informationdensity slider works, according to embodiments of the present invention;

FIG. 11 illustrates a system implementing an information density slider,according to embodiments of the present invention;

FIG. 12 illustrates a logic flow for the global tagging feature,according to embodiments of the present invention;

FIGS. 13 and 14 illustrate system implementation of an advertisementserving model, according to embodiments of the present invention;

FIGS. 15-21 illustrate wireframe views depicting various features of theadvertisement (and coupon) serving model, according to embodiments ofthe present invention;

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present invention will now be described in detail with reference tothe drawings, which are provided as illustrative examples of theinvention so as to enable those skilled in the art to practice theinvention. Notably, the figures and examples below are not meant tolimit the scope of the present invention to a single embodiment, butother embodiments are possible by way of interchange of some or all ofthe described or illustrated elements. Moreover, where certain elementsof the present invention can be partially or fully implemented usingknown components, only those portions of such known components that arenecessary for an understanding of the present invention will bedescribed, and detailed descriptions of other portions of such knowncomponents will be omitted so as not to obscure the invention.Embodiments described as being implemented in software should not belimited thereto, but can include embodiments implemented in hardware, orcombinations of software and hardware, and vice-versa, as will beapparent to those skilled in the art, unless otherwise specified herein.In the present specification, an embodiment showing a singular componentshould not be considered limiting; rather, the invention is intended toencompass other embodiments including a plurality of the same component,and vice-versa, unless explicitly stated otherwise herein. Moreover,applicants do not intend for any term in the specification or claims tobe ascribed an uncommon or special meaning unless explicitly set forthas such. Further, the present invention encompasses present and futureknown equivalents to the known components referred to herein by way ofillustration.

In general, embodiments of the invention provide a number of differentfeatures and advantages that advance the state of the art ofcomputer-networking-based social sharing. These features and advantagesare provided via a combination of one or more services, implemented insoftware and appropriate hardware interface to execute the software,while honoring users' preferred level of privacy in regard to contentownership and advertisement-related interactions on the social platform.

Example aspects of these and other features and advantages will bedescribed in more detail below. These descriptions will refer to anexample platform referred to herein as “Sgrouples,” in which all of theabove services and features are integrated. However, the invention isnot limited to this particular example platform and/or combination ofservices and features, as will be appreciated by those skilled in theart after being taught by the following examples.

FIG. 1 shows an illustration of a welcome page for the example socialnetworking platform of the present invention Sgrouples. This page showssome of the features and services offered by the platform, which arelaid out as the ‘tabs’ listed horizontally (e.g., “Groups”, “What'sNew”, “My Cloud” etc.) at the top and also, on the left panel of thewebpage (e.g., “Create New Groups”, “Social Networks” etc.

FIG. 2 shows the another example of how a page within the generalenvironment of the social platform of the present invention may looklike, once a user has created groups and/or entered data to indicatetheir preference. This view is known as “World View” within the examplesocial network Sgrouples. Users can select which contents are displayedat what level of priority on a specific page. This example page shows acollection of panels each showing various groups that the user isinterested in (such as Playschool group, Camera Club, etc.) and alsogateways to other social networking sites (such as Facebook, Twitteretc.) Note that users can selectively post content to a group/removecontent posted to a group/change permission level of who sees thecontent, but still maintain the content in his/her personal storagespace. The personal storage space is sometimes referred to as “MyCloud,” also shown in FIG. 2 in the left hand panel.

As a pivotal feature of the social networking platform of the presentinvention, user has the ability to create/join a group based on avariety of criteria of interest to the user, such as certain themes,certain types of content, appropriateness of the content for certaindemographics, existing and/or potential members of the group etc.

As an easy visual cue to associate relevant content/activities to aparticular group, a special distinctive color may be chosen, from acolor palette provided to the user by the platform provider. Forexample, on FIG. 2, the distinctive color of choice for the group“Camera Club” is purple. So the member names are all shown in thatcolor, and the page pertaining to that group predominantly use the colorpurple, for example in tagging the content, framing/highlighting acontent etc.

For integrated view presented to an user, where data related todifferent groups that the user is a member of are all shown on a singlescreen, the color distinction offers ease of datavisualization/interpretation. For example, in FIG. 3, a calendar view isshown where different calendar entries are framed with a correspondingcolor of the group to which the entry pertains.

Contents on the social networking platform may be tagged by one or moreusers, who may or may not be the original owner of the content based onthe set permission level. For example, any member with postingpermission may tag other members of a group in a picture. Members of agroup may also tag items, and the tags may be globally searchable withina group. In one example, tags may reflect characteristic of a group,such as a pre-assigned color for a group may be reflected in the tag. Bydesigning the proper level of permission control, tagging may bedisabled for users who may be within the social networking platform, butare not necessarily part of a particular group where the content isposted. Removal of tag can be the privilege of the owner of the content,the group owner/moderator, or the tagged person. When a group membertags another member of the group, an appropriate notification is sent tothe member who is being tagged. The tagging and universal taggingfeatures are elaborated later in the specification.

The contents shared/tagged within the social networking platform of thepresent invention may be suitable for lightweight communication orcontent-rich communication. For example, graphics and audio-visual clipsmay be embedded in a posting. Photo albums may be created fromposted/shared photographs. Photo albums bay be used as a source ofimages to create a collage with photos of various aspect ratios withinan outline. Other related options, for example, printing options may beintegrated with the album or the collage. When graphical content, e.g.,an album or a photo/collage, is shared with a group, a notification maybe received by all members of the group at the “What's new” panel of thescreen. Content can be shared from “My Cloud’ to one or more emailaddresses or phone numbers too instead of or in addition to being sharedon the group page.

Embodiments of the invention provide a unique suite of privacyprotections that it calls its privacy bill of rights. The privacyprotections are enforced through the technological design, and are whatis called “privacy by design.”

A user's personal information is private and it is theirs rather thanthe social platform provider's. Users own their content and all of theirdata, and share according to their level of comfort with privacy issues.Users are in control of who can see information about them and posted bythem. The social platform provider will by default refrain from makinguser data being available for searching, advertisement placement etc.unless the user wants that. The platform provider typically will notsuggest contacts, friends, or “people you might know”, to users.Permissions and privacy are considered as user rights. Embodiments ofthe invention make it easy for users to deny or give access to anycontent they create. Embodiments of the invention ensure tracking,profiling, sharing of personal information are disabled without specificcontent from the user. Furthermore, users decide the type ofadvertisements they want and the social platform provider will cater tothe user's preference. Users will also have a “No Ads” option. If a userleaves the social platform providers' service, there are clear and easyinstructions on how to delete anything and everything of that user atthe platform if they desire.

With an overarching principle of customizable privacy settings defininguser experience, the social networking platform of the present inventiondoes offer certain enhanced communication and sharing features that areelaborated in greater detail below. Persons skilled in the art willappreciate

Integration with Other Social Network Platforms

In one embodiment of the present invention, a user enjoys the ability tointeract with multiple other users at once without the multiple otherusers having to individually meet certain constraints, such asindividually being members of a social network external to the socialnetworking platform of the present invention. As an example, let usassume that at least sonic of the multiple other users are using asecond social networking platform, such as Twitter, which is separatefrom and external to the social networking platform of the presentinvention. Twitter is a popular lightweight communication platform thatallows users to follow other people and view what those people areposting. Twitter users can follow large numbers of users, and someTwitter users are followed by many people. Because of the large numberof posts that flow through Twitter, users often fail to see the posts bythe people they particularly are interested in following. Furthermore,Twitter itself lacks the ability to communicate in groups, and it lacksthe ability to share and archive data of various types, includingdocuments and calendar events. Virtually all Twitter functions arepublic, with the exception of .a private Direct Message function, but itonly enables users to communicate privately to one member at a time, anddoes not support multiple-person messaging.

To address these shortcomings, the social networking platform of thepresent invention provides a service, referred here as “Group Tweets,”that allows users (who may be members of a group) to see one another'sTwitter posts, without having to follow those people on Twitter itself.Persons skilled in the art will understand that though Twitter is beingused as an illustrative example, the scope of the invention encompassesother social networking platforms too, such as Facebook, My Space,LinkedIn etc., and the term ‘tweet’ is being used in a somewhat genericsense to include the form of posting. This service can be used by groupsof people who share common interests and desire a more powerful andprivate communication platform not subject to the constraints ofTwitter. By offering the Group Tweets service to users of the socialplatform of the present invention, the effect is to create a deepersense of community among that group of users inside the platform, whothen also have access to more powerful social sharing tools, such asphoto albums, document sharing and collaboration, event calendars, andmulti-person direct messaging.

The Group Tweets feature differs fundamentally from existing Twitterlists because Twitter users can not add a set of people at once tocreate a private/semi private group. The groups within the socialplatform of the present invention have customizable privacy levels, andusers can join by invitation. Although Twitter lists come in “Public”and “Private” varieties, this distinction only determines if the worldat large can see the list, or if only the creator can see the list.There is no ability for a selected group of people to share that list.Furthermore, the Twitter list has no actual connection between themembers of the list, each of whom has no control over being in a givenlist. By contrast, members of a group on the social platform of thepresent invention are invited to join the group, and they can leave thegroup at any time. The Group Tweets service provides a mechanism tocreate a carefully curated list of Twitter users who all are members ofthe group. In addition to seeing one another's Twitter posts, thesegroup members can also share and archive rich content not available viaTwitter, including documents, events, calendars etc. The individualgroup members are also able to directly and/or privately message theentire group or subsets of it. This service can potentially be extendedto users of the social networking platform in general who are notnecessarily members of a formal group yet.

From an ‘user experience’ standpoint, a non-limiting illustrative flowcan be as follows (using Sgrouples as the example social networkingprivate embodying the present invention): 1) A user registers atSgrouples; 2) The user creates a private group and invites others tojoin; 3) Invited users register/login at Sgrouples and join the group.;4) One or more of the users also connect to Twitter from within theSgrouples environment. The Group Tweets service is only displayed in themenu inside the group (for example in the horizontal menu, or elsewhereinside the group) when at least one member of the group is connected toTwitter. 5) When the service is active, it displays (in chronologicalorder or based on other prioritization criteria) all the tweets postedto Twitter by members of the current group who are connected to Twitter,whether or not the other members of the group follow them, or even areconnected to Twitter themselves. 6) If one or more of the group membersdon't want to see Group Tweets, there is an optional field in the grouppreferences allowing the member to disable the ‘Group Tweets’ feature inthat user's view of the group activities, or the feature can be disabledfor the whole group based on group consent.

The platform of the present invention provides, among other things,means to archive the content posted to Twitter by a group of people whomay not be mutually connected via the Twitter service; means forusers/group members to view the content posted to Twitter by members oftheir group who may not be mutually connected via the Twitter service;means to provide a group of Twitter users with additional social sharingtools, including archived photos, events and documents; means to providea group of Twitter users with the ability to send direct messages tomore than one recipient in the group.

Technically, this service can be implemented in several ways. In oneexample way, we identify the Twitter IDs of each member in the group(this can be a group prior to formalization, i.e. can be an ad hocgroup) who is also a Twitter member, then query the Twitter servicethrough its public ‘User Streams’ API, requesting the content associatedwith each identified Twitter user, then store those tweets in thedatabase of the social platform of the present invention, such asSgrouples database. In this implementation, the Group Tweets servicethen loads past set(s) of group tweets without having to re-query theTwitter service. In this way, when another group member accesses theGroup Tweets service, the data is already stored in the Sgrouplesdatabase and doesn't have to be reloaded from Twitter. This solutionsaves load-time and minimizes the requests to the Twitter service.Another way to implement Group Tweets is to re-query the Twitter serviceevery time any member accesses Group Tweets. This solution provides thefreshest and most complete data set, but is slower and requires the mostrequests to the Twitter servers. An intermediate solution can also beimplemented, where the number of queries sent to the Twitter server islimited within a specific period of time.

Group Tweets is built around Twitter API's using OAuth, HTTP and JSONtechnologies to gather data. There are three main Twitter API's used:REST API v1.1, User Streams and Site Streams. User must firstauthenticate Sgrouples as a trusted application with Twitter using OAuthalgorithm.

After authenticating successfully with Twitter, two API's are usedsimultaneously. First, the REST API is used to download user data anddisplay the Twitter feed. At the same time, “User Stream” API islaunched to start listening for tweets from Twitter asynchronously.After User Stream is launched all tweets from the followed accounts areasynchronously pushed to Sgrouples servers and stored in database to beused in Group Tweet functionality later.

With the addition of a third Twitter API “Site Streams,” users are ableto see real-time updates from other group members in Group Tweets, whichis not possible with the User Stream API alone. Using the Site StreamAPI also allows the Group Tweets service to listen for Twitter dataasynchronously even when the initiating user goes offline.

FIG. 4 shows an example situation, where user A logs in to Sgrouples instep 402 (the Sgrouples environment is shown as element 400). User Acreates a group with Twitter connected members in step 404. Through theGroup Tweet feature (element 406), the twitter postings of the groupmembers are displayed in Sgrouples. Twitter is shown as the externalnetwork 450. The Group Comet Actor 408 in the Groups Tweets service isan entity that exists outside the standard http request cycle thatallows for asynchronous communication from the server to the members ofthe group, such that the information they receive is automaticallyupdated without requiring a manual request. FIG. 5 shows a furtherimplementation of the Group Tweet service where a local database 504(such as a MongoDB) coupled to Sgrouples archive Sgrouples group tweets502. Here user A is a Twitter member as well as Sgrouples member, butuser B is not a Twitter member, just a Sgrouples group member, but canstill can see tweets from Twitter users who are also Sgrouples groupmembers.

Persons skilled in the art will appreciate that though specifically notdisclosed here, the social platform provider possesses copyrighted datamodel and rendering code, streaming API implementation code, serviceload code (e.g. code to load Twitter service from within Sgrouplesplatform) etc.

Direct Messaging and Group Creation

Users of the social networking platform of the present invention havethe option to send direct messages (DM) to other users. The messageexchange does not necessarily have to be between members of a formalizedgroup. In other words, the platform offers message exchange between anad hoc collection of users who may eventually formalize a group. As aspecial feature, the platform can provide a mechanism to create a group(ad hoc or formalized) by storing a thread of exchanged messages betweenthe users of the social network.

The Direct Messaging feature can be accessed in several ways, including,but not limited to: from the “Direct Message” link in the posting bar;from the “New Message” link inside the Direct Message Service; from thestandard Post or Share dialog, when users select “Individual Members” asa destination; from a Member's Page, by clicking the “Send a DirectMessage” link, etc.

The messages a member sends and receives are stored on the Message Area.Messages may be sorted/grouped by conversation, with the most recentlyexchanged conversation at the top. When the user clicks one of themessages in the main messages area, the detailed view of theconversation opens, and they see a collection of messages back andforth, with the oldest at the top, and the newest at the bottom. Belowthe most recent message is a Reply function, allowing the user to add tothe conversation.

Each message may have text as well as inline images, does, and activelinks, video clips, sound files, calendar events or other formats ofinformation. The user can add a photo or doe (or other file) in a reply,or they can start a new conversation by sharing a photo or doe with amember as a direct message. Photos may be shown in the message stream atthumbnail format, and they can be clicked on and seen at largeresolution in a fancybox format (without comments). From the Messagearea, a user may start a direct message and add multiple recipients. Therecipients may be part of a single group or different groups, or may beindividual users of the social networking platform. An auto-completefunction may suggest names of members from various groups, color-codedwith their group colors.

Once a user starts a conversation thread, an additional option becomesavailable to create a group. For example of message like may appear:“Enjoying this conversation? Start a Sgrouple (private group) with thesemembers.” In other words, the platform provides tools for group creationfrom message/conversation threads.

Clicking on the Start a Sgrouplc (private group) link pops up a dialogallowing the person who clicks the link to start a new Sgrouple (privategroup). They get to choose the name, color, etc, and they become theowner of the group. Ownership and management of the group can start withone user, can be a shared responsibility, and/or can be delegated. Oncea group is created, the other recipients (in addition to the initialgroup creator) receive a notification onsite and/or by email, allowingthem to join the new group. They also see in the direct message thread anote, e.g., “Jessica formed a new Sgrouple (private group) from thisconversation” and a button to Join the Sgrouple (private group).

The group may be created by importing a communication exchange threadfrom an external social network (for example a Twitter feed); and,integrating the imported communication exchange thread within the socialnetwork platform.

Fig, 6 shows a flowchart 600, which shows the example primary steps, 602(enabling users to directly exchange messages within the socialnetwork), 604 (storing a thread of messages), 606 (providing at leastone user to formally create a group based on the stored thread ofmessages), and 608 (providing the ability to one or more group membersto manage aspects of the formalized group).

Information Visualization

The social networking platform of the present invention provides users agreat deal of flexibility in terms of how they want to visualize data.Specifically, the social networking platform can present multi-formatinformation to a user based on user'svisualization/browsing/information-absorption preference, because theplatform provider recognizes that different users process informationdifferently, and also, different formats of contents are displayeddifferently at different aspect ratios of the visualization device'sscreen. In short, the platform has features that enable the user tocontrol the relative proportion of various formats of informationembedded within a stream of information being visualized by the userwithin the social network platform.

As an illustrative example, in the “What's New” feed in a user's “MyCloud”, in any of their groups, and in any external social media feed(e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, etc), the user typically sees achronological aggregation of postings having various types of contentsthat the user has permission to see. As mentioned above, differentpeople process information differently (e.g., some prefer a lot of text,and some prefer a lot of images), and different devices (ranging fromthe smallest mobile device to the largest desktop computer) are bestsuited to display different amounts of data. Also, differentgroups/group members/users share different types/formats of information.

To accommodate these differences, the social networking platformprovides a feature by which the user can adjust the density of the datain his feed via a slider or similar graphic user interface (GUI)mechanism (e.g. knob, switch, buttons, etc). This mechanism controls thevisual layout of the data stream, and how much graphic information ispresented, versus how much textual information. On one end of the rangeof possible values is “All Text”, which is the highest text datadensity, and the data stream includes no images. At the other end of therange, the user can select “All Images”, in which case they do not seeany content items that do not have a graphical component—the stream isliterally all pictures with no text. The user may dynamically change thesetting of the slider while browsing a data stream. Also, with thisfeature, the user may control how much contextual information they wantto see. In an example, clicking or hovering over the images may triggerappearance of hidden information associated with each picture, such asits owner, caption, comments, date, etc.

There may be a range of intermediate values on the slider that the usermay select, which provide a customized balance of text to images. Inaddition to the ratio of images to text, the scale of the images canalso vary, from nonexistent to small to maximal for the device displayat the extremes. The setting of the information slider may also changethe amount of text displayed, for example truncating what is displayedand providing the user the ability to click to see more, or hiding andshowing comments associated with each post.

This mechanism can be set by each individual user in each of theirgroups. The site keeps track of the user's settings of the Data DensitySlider for each of the user's groups and feeds across sessions. Theinformation slider setting can also be set globally for all of a user'sgroups and feeds. The owner or creator of the group may also customizethe information slider settings based on how they wish the group toappear and the specific nature of the information shared within thegroup, and this setting may define the appearance of the group, or serveas a customizable default setting for each user in the group.

FIGS. 7-10 show the slider moving from one and to the other end(locations shown as 702, 802, 902 and 1002), and the proportion ofgraphics with respect to text is increasing as the slider moves towardsthe right.

FIG. 11 shows the information slider 1102 as a service available to theuser who browses a “What's new” feed in the computer 1101. Informationslider data is stored in local database coupled to the social networkplatform provider. Database may comprise multiple replicas, as shown inFIGS. 11 (1110, 1112, and 1114).

Advertisement Model within Social Networking Platform

The social networking platform of the present invention integrates anadvertisement model within the platform with user privacy at the core ofits philosophy. To that cause, the platform provider may choose toconcentrate on only the data provided by a user that is related to hisadvertisement preference, while all other personal data, provided by theuser, or recognized by the system, even if available, are not utilizedfor fine-tuning other automated suggestion mechanisms provided by theplatform. In any event, the social networking platform at least ensuresthat the user's identity is protected from the third-party advertisementprovider. In other words, the user, only interacts with theadvertisement provider in an anonymous manner. User anonymity isprotected during the entire advertisement-related interaction, startingfrom setting advertisement viewing preference, all the way to actuallypurchasing something based on advertisement served on the socialnetworking platform, if a user chooses to do so. This emphasis on userprivacy sets the social networking platform of the present inventionapart from other currently available advertisement models.

Currently advertising models rely on varying intensities of ascertainingdetails about the individual that the advertisement is being served to.There are many ways this is done, even in advertising systems whereindividuals can refine their advertising choices. All current systemsand models rely on data determined about the individual that is based oneither data scraping, tracking cookies, other means and mechanisms,and/or analysis of the uniquely identifiable information provided by theindividual to a company. Often that data is also aggregated by, sharedwith, and/or re-shared with one or many third parties.

Sgrouples' advertising model is based on the functional foundation ofindividuals being and remaining entirely anonymous during theadvertising selection and delivery process in which advertisements aredetermined what to be and delivered/served/displayed/provided to theindividual by any and all means.

Individuals remain anonymous to advertisers during the entire process inwhich they are selecting the advertisements they would like to receiveand/or are then displayed in all of the individual's mobile devices,desktop computers, televisions, phones, portable, any and all personalelectronics, etc. At no time is anything about the individual revealedto the advertiser during the selection process and the delivery of theadvertisements that the individual selects during the ad selectionprocess (prior to and not related to “clicking” on a specific servedadvertisement) and in any manner indicates a willingness to receive.

sf-4135159

Attorney Docket No. 78880-20001.03

Optionally, if and when an individual takes a definitive action to clickon an advertisement that they have received, which is received by theindividual based on their inputs into the advertisement selectionprocess, then information about that individual may be transmitted,revealed, acquired or otherwise determined or provided to theadvertiser.

An alternate method for ensuring the individual is not tracked involvescreating a proxy standard feature or a proxy option for the individualto hide their identity from the Advertiser, so that even when they clickon or otherwise indicate a definitive interest in a specificadvertisement that the individual has received, the identity anddetails/information about the individual remains anonymous and notdiscoverable; there is no way to link the identity of the individual tothe ad they clicked on. This protection of the individual's identity mayalso optionally continue through the purchase cycle with the exceptionof data that must be collected in order to fulfill on the individual'spurchasing desires. Here too, a third party system can optionally beenacted for fulfillment to further protect the individual's identityfrom the advertiser.

By fully participating in the selection of the advertisements theyreceive, the individual gives the Advertiser a uniquely andsignificantly more relevant opportunity to generate interest and salesfrom the individual; and also gives the individual protection fromadvertising systems that rely on tracking, spying, profiling and otherdata scraping/data sharing/data acquisition methods.

There are many benefits to this model, including, but not limited to thefollowing.

By choosing their advertisements using some or all of the methodsdescribed above or those extrapolated from the descriptions below, theindividual is demonstrably the highest value example of one-to-onecorrespondence between product and the consumer, as the ads provided tothe individual are exactly what the individual desires. There is a muchhigher likelihood that the individual will “click” on their Ads and/orCoupons, generating a significantly higher “click-through rate” thancurrent expectations and standards. Individuals are expected to makesignificantly more purchases though the advertisements they receive.

This model is anticipated to generate higher CPMs due to its uniquerelevancy to the individual and the trust that the system generatesbetween the individual, the company, and the Advertiser.

There are many ways that such a system can function, and all have thefundamentals above as prerequisite. One exemplary way theAdvertiser/Advertisement selection process is envisioned to operate isthe following:

The individual can choose from a selection of consumer goods andservices, for example, by starting at a top/gross level ad categories,and then optionally drilling down to select sub categories.Alternatively or additionally, the selection may be from specificcompanies and the sub categories, from specific products and/or servicesoffered by the companies etc., as selected by the user. The product,service, and vendor or company selections may be based on severaldifferent types of criteria, including, but not limited to: thegeographic location of the user as provided by the user or chosen by theuser (and to be determined by the company); proximity of availability oflocation of service, location-specific pricing etc. Users may furtherrefine their selections in many different ways, for example, theindividual may enable a geolocation service or may enter their zip codeor country, state, city, etc., to identify their location, and/or from amobile or portable device they may permit the advertising service todetect their location.

An Advertisement Selector system is available within the social networkplatform. Advertisers may purchase a sponsorship/Advertiser position tobe placed in the ad selector system.

Another example of the way the individuals can select their AdPreferences is via a preference, ranking, or other means of creating ameasurable quantity reflecting the level of preference such that as aslider or other type of GUI mechanism can be set to establish thepreferential hierarchy of a user's desired or selected ad categories orchoices they would like to be served. Frequency of ad serving, relativerelationship of the desired categories etc. can be selected by the user,or determined by the system.

For example, for each advertising or coupon category, the user may setthe slider from 0 (left) to 100 (right). The values may default to 100(right) for each category, and the individual may then adjust certaincategories downward. The values selected by the individual provide apreference coefficient for each category, allowing the algorithm to biasthe frequency of displaying ads in different categories based on theUser's preferences.

This same mechanism can be extended to adjusting the preference valuesfor subcategories of Ads as well. A user may not assign the values ofall the Ad preferences sliders to 0. When a user attempts to assign allthe values to 0 (left), one or more of the sliders will automatically beset to 100, to allow the service to continue to serve ads.

This is simply one example/illustration, and there are several ways toimplement an Ad Preference mechanism to establish the preferences and/orfrequency and/or relative relationship of a user's desired or selectedad categories or choices they would like to be served as selected by theUser.

For a premium level of service, a user may choose to select a “noadvertisement” option while enjoying the other features of the socialnetworking platform.

The individual may refine their ad preferences dynamically by providingfeedback about any of ads they see. There are several potential ways todo this. For example, one way is that without having to revisit the adpreferences selection page, the individual can register a ‘+’ or ‘−’vote for an ad that is served to them, and the algorithm will adjust theproportion of similar ads the member receives. There are many ways for auser to register their opinions/input/feedback about the ads they see;some ways could be by using numerical, qualitative, gradient,contextual, and other measuring/input/feedback mechanisms, etc.

The user also has the option to explore coupon offerings that aregenerated based on the criteria and/or choices they have entered fortheir ad preferences. In the context of the present application,“coupons” are considered to be encompassed by the broad term of“advertisement.” Therefore, the advertisement filter can be thought of asystem that is configured to serve coupons intelligently to the users,i.e. potential buyers. In other words, coupons offered to the user canuse all the same methods for their selection and delivery as the onesfor advertisements that have been described herein. Whenever a userselects or purchases a coupon, it could also be counted as a positivevote for that category in the preferential measurement system.

There can be other benefits of this Advertising/Couponing service byensuring that the individual is anonymous and/or protected from othertypes of data gathering. For example, the lack of ability for trackingor information gathering of any kind on users by Advertisers can bedesigned into the service. In an example of one way to ensure this isenforceable, the ads are procured from an ad partner, but may actuallybe served to the users from the servers that belong to the socialnetwork platform provider. This is distinct from the traditional modelof advertisement presentation to the users of a social network in whichads are actually served directly by a third party and included in thepage that is served to the user.

FIGS. 13 and 14 show two implementations of the ad serving system, theonly difference being that the implementation in FIG. 14 has anadditional component 1407, which is a Sgrouples ad database prior to thefilter 1308. In both FIGS. 13 and 14, user creates or edits personal adfilter preference in step 1302, which is stored in database 1304. Thirdparty ad service 1306 can only interact with the user on the socialnetwork platform through proxy server 1312 or other anonymizationmethods. The proxy server 1312 receives the third party ads and servesthem to the user selectively (i.e. only the ads that pass the filteringcriteria). Another optionl proxy server 1318 may be placed between theuser and the ad server when the user indicates a definitive intension byclicking on the ad (or even purchasing the advertised product). Relevantcoupons may also be displayed to the user, as shown in step 1314.

FIGS. 15-21 are wireframe diagrams showing different features of the admodel as described. Element 1502 highlights the premium option of havingto see no ad at all. Element 1504 highlights an optional fieldassociated with geolocation, if the user wants geographically relevantinformation, as shown in greater detail in FIG. 17 withgeolocation-related information set 1700. FIG. 15 shows broad categories1500, FIG. 16-19 show how broad categories can be broken down tosub-categories.

FIGS. 20 and 21 show how instead of checking boxes, ad preferences canbe set by using a slider, whose two positions are shows as 2000 and2100. Persons skilled in the art will understand the slider can be movedcontinually or in steps.

Tagging and Organizing

Users can tag, or categorize, items of interest within the socialnetworking platform, within a group or even outside of a group. Thisallows searching for content associated with any tag or tags, and alsoallows the viewers to understand the relevance of a given post, and toassociate it with other items with the same tag. Sgrouples provides ameans for tagging any kind of information, from any service or device,and the same set of tags is used for the different information typesincluding text posts, photos, videos, events, documents, etc. While eachof these types of posts is sorted into its own service, such as photoalbums or an event calendar, the tag categories apply across services,allowing the users to easily search for relevant items regardless of thetype of information. This concept is sometimes referred to as “universaltagging.”

The tag categories span the various types of information within a group,and they can also span across groups. In this case a user can add thesame tag to different pieces of information in several of their groups,and they can also search by tags and find information in any of theirgroups. This also implies that some users may not be able to see all thepieces of content associated with a given tag, as they may not bemembers of all the groups with that tag, and consequently they lackpermission to see some of the tagged items.

Embodiments of the present invention provides means to identify andassociate information shared within a group that may be of differenttypes (e.g. text, photos, videos, documents, etc), means to identify andassociate information shared among different groups that may be ofdifferent types (e.g. text, photos, videos, documents, etc), means tosearch for items that are tagged, regardless of what type of info theyare (text, photo, video, document, etc) and whether they are in a singlegroup or in several groups.

Persons skilled ion the art will easily recognize that tagging is a veryefficient and versatile way to organize content for easy retrieval. Thiscan be done during the upload process, or afterward, and any member of agroup with posting permissions can assign tags to any shared documentsin their group. The owner of a doe may also assign their own privatetags to the doc in their My Cloud. In one way to do this, these tags arenot shared with the groups; another way to do this is to share privatetags in My Cloud with the owners groups. The tags in one group are notvisible to the members of another group. While viewing their does, theuser may sort and filter based on one or more tags, as well as by owner,date uploaded, date modified, etc.

Tags may also be presented in a simpler fashion, in which the doesappear organized into folders, or categories, instead of tags, but theunderlying architecture is similar. This is equivalent to sortingdocuments based on one tag at a time. This is similar to the functioningof the photo service, in which photos are sorted into albums, and theycan also be sorted by tags. It is also analogous to the functioning oftags / categories for “Discussions” posts in Sgrouples.

After a post is uploaded, it may be edited and tagged with one or moreglobal tags that are shared by the group. Clicking the “Tag” link opensa small widget that contains any existing tags used by the group, aswell as a “New Tag” input field. By default, only the poster may tag apost, but in some permissions configurations, other members may addtags, including tags of member names, to associate a post with aspecific person in the group.

A “Discussions” post may also be directed to specific, individualmembers of one or more groups via the Direct Message mechanism. Viewingby Tag is possible. Choosing a selection from the select box at the topof the viewing window filters the stream and only shows the posts fromthat tag category. The select box starts with “All,” and also containsan “Add Tag” option, which is an entry field for user to enter a newtag.

Another way to implement this would be as a subset of the full set ofavailable tags, and only allowing one tag per item, which can then beconsidered as a “Category”. Users can select a category to assign to agiven post, and then they can filter the stream of Discussions posts bycategory.

Another mechanism for utilizing smart tagging is “sorting.” In the Maxiwidget view, the user can sort the stream of posts by Date, Alphabetical(based on link title, which may not always exist), Member name, and MostPopular (defined by a combination of most commented on, most clicked onand most shared.)

The user's shared Discussions posts also show up in their My Cloud. InMy Cloud, the posts are shown with dots to indicate which groups they'vebeen shared with. A post that has been tagged in one group does notnecessarily reflect that tag in another group it may be shared with. InMy Cloud, the item may display different tags in the different groups itis shared with. In this way tags are conceptually distinct from sharedalbums or folders.

In the present invention the global tagging mechanism can be implementedas shown in FIG. 12, in which a post of any data type is added in 1202.The list of existing tags that the user has access to is retrieved fromthe Database in 1206 and displayed to the user in 1214. Alternatively,the user may create a new tag in 1204 that is then added to the DB forfuture retrieval. The posted content is then associated with the tag andthis relationship is captured in the DB in 1208. When any user who hasaccess to that content views the content, the tag is attached to it.Finally, when any user who has access to that tag and searches forcontent matching the specific tag, all post items that the user hasaccess to, of all content types, are displayed in 1212.

Although the present invention has been particularly described withreference to the preferred embodiments thereof, it should be readilyapparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that changes andmodifications in the form and details may be made without departing fromthe spirit and scope of the invention. It is intended that the inventionencompasses such changes and modifications.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of providing an advertisement, themethod comprising: receiving identity information corresponding to auser of an interactive service, the interactive service having anoperator; determining an advertisement viewing preference of the user;determining, based on the advertisement viewing preference, firstadvertisement criteria; receiving, from an advertiser, a firstadvertisement; in accordance with a determination that the firstadvertisement satisfies the first advertisement criteria, presenting thefirst advertisement to the user; receiving, from the user, inputcorresponding to the first advertisement; anonymizing the input withrespect to the advertiser; and communicating the anonymized input to theadvertiser, wherein: the input is not communicated to the operator ofthe interactive service, the identity information is not communicated tothe advertiser, and the identity information is not communicated to theoperator of the interactive service.
 2. The method of claim 1, whereinpresenting the first advertisement comprises presenting the firstadvertisement to the user via a third party.
 3. The method of claim 1,wherein the first advertisement corresponds to an item and the inputindicates a request by the user to purchase the item.
 4. The method ofclaim 3, wherein: the request comprises a request that a supplierprovide the item, and the identity information is not communicated tothe supplier.
 5. The method of claim 3, wherein the first advertisementcomprises a coupon corresponding to the item.
 6. The method of claim 1,wherein the interactive service comprises a content distributionplatform.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the interactive servicecomprises a social network platform.
 8. The method of claim 1, themethod further comprising receiving preference information, wherein theadvertisement viewing preference is determined based on the preferenceinformation.